Obama faces Democrat revolt over Ground Zero mosque
- From: The Times
- August 18, 2010
FOUR days into an intensifying national dispute over plans for a mosque near Ground Zero, Barack Obama has been left isolated by his own party after the refusal of senior Democrats to back the project.
Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader and Mr Obama's former mentor in Congress, has broken with the White House by saying that the mosque should be built elsewhere, while David Paterson, the Democratic Governor of New York State, announced last night that he would be meeting the project's developers to discuss alternative sites.Gleeful Republicans have stepped up attacks on the US President for appearing to bow to the dangerous political currents stirred up by the idea of an Islamic cultural centre two blocks from where the World Trade Centre collapsed after a terrorist attack nine years ago.
Emboldened by polls showing that at least two-thirds of Americans consider the plan an insult to the memory of 9/11's victims, conservatives have likened it to the idea of a swastika being erected next to the Holocaust Museum in New York or a Japanese war memorial at Pearl Harbor. Newt Gingrich, the potential 2012 presidential contender, has gone as far as to argue that there should be no mosque near Ground Zero as long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia.
A growing number of Democrats believe that Mr Obama has only himself to blame. With a total of 43 words, half of them unscripted, he has split his base by intervening where no intervention was required.
It started with a carefully judged line at an Iftar dinner for Muslims at the White House last Friday. Paying tribute to a Muslim winner of the Purple Heart buried in Arlington National Cemetery, he said that every American military veteran shared "the values that we hold dear" and that "one of those values is the freedom to practise your religion - a right that is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution".
The line was seized on by conservatives as an implicit endorsement of the so-called Park 51 project, which is backed by one of America's leading Sufi moderates and would, if built, include a swimming pool and a 500-seat auditorium as well as a mosque.
The following day Mr Obama felt the need to clarify his remarks. His intention was simply to let people know what he thought about equality under the law, he said on a family visit to the Gulf of Mexico. "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there."
By entering the fray Mr Obama dismayed congressional Democrats in tight midterm races who face majorities who object to an Islamic presence of any kind near what they consider hallowed ground - even though there are already two busy mosques within four blocks of Ground Zero.
"How can this possibly be helpful when feelings are still so raw?" one party strategist asked in The Washington Post yesterday. By attempting to modify his message, he has let down other supporters who saw his first comments as a rare and welcome stand on principle. Republicans have relished the entire spectacle.
Senator Reid is fighting for his political life in Nevada and believes that he cannot afford to equivocate. "The First Amendment protects freedom of religion," a spokesman said. "Senator Reid respects that, but thinks the mosque should be build some place else."
The White House insisted that Mr Obama was untroubled by his loneliness in defence of Muslims' rights to worship and that "he's happy our thriving democracy is continuing to produce vigorous debate".
The Australian
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